The massive investigation of a Surrey couple charged with the 2013 Canada Day terrorism plot was justified given last October’s so-called lone-wolf attacks, the key undercover agent involved believes.

The Mountie maintained accused John Nuttall’s inability to decide on a plan and other oddities did not mean the impoverished drug addicts weren’t a threat to public safety.

“There are a lot of terrorists who had plans, that started with multiple plans,” explained the corporal, who cannot be named or described by court order.

“They started with all these ideas — they were going to do this or this, then they start going to the plan that is more feasible for them …. It depends on the money they are going to need. … There are people that can afford to do 9/11; other people can’t do it. They do what happened in Ottawa and (St-Jean-sur-Richelieu) Quebec. They use a car, they use whatever they have. That is what we were doing here.”

For the last two months, a B.C. Supreme Court jury has heard only from the RCMP officer while watching and listening to weeks of secretly recorded surveillance of the pair — a veritable epic documentary produced by the prosecution.

Since Monday, though, Nuttall’s lawyer Marilyn Sandford has been playing material the Crown left on the cutting-room floor and grilling the man who played a jihadist Arab businessman in the sophisticated sting that snared her client and Korody.

Prosecutor Peter Eccles raised several objections to the material being entered as evidence — and has not given up that fight, though Justice Catherine Bruce has so far summarily dismissed his complaints that it is irrelevant.

The unemployed heroin addicts on methadone living in a basement apartment had been homeless alcoholics before converting to Islam.

Throughout the surveillance, the towering six-foot-five Nuttall delivers an almost endless monologue filled with confused versions of world history, strange conspiracy theories, his understanding of Reaganomics or the deep inspiration he found in Rambo III.

Over the course of the five-month operation, police pretending to be Islamic extremists paid Nuttall to do odd jobs, bought him a new suit, supplied the couple with food, took them on trips to Whistler and the Okanagan, ultimately providing vehicles, hotel rooms and the phoney bombs planted in Victoria.
The corporal testily responded to the implication that the investigation involving roughly 240 officers was misguided.

“What we were doing was a long investigation — we were spending a lot of taxpayers’ money there,” he conceded. “We had to see if this guy is for real or not. Do we stop it or do we keep on going to check … is he going to do it?”

But the mercurial Nuttall often talked nonsense.

For instance, pressed to come up with a plausible plan, Nuttall described seizing a passenger train in Victoria to trade hostages for the release of Omar Khadr, the imprisoned convicted Canadian war criminal formerly confined at Guantanamo Bay.

Nuttall planned to let women and children go but line up the men against the train’s windows so sharpshooters couldn’t be deployed while an accomplice on a nearby rooftop picked off SWAT team member trying to rush the train.

Unfortunately, there was no passenger train — the service was discontinued years ago, and when the Mountie found out, he scolded Nuttall as if he were a recalcitrant child.

“My help is still there,” the officer said during the May 10 meeting, “but I need something that can be done.”

Nuttall responded that he could fire homemade rockets at the legislature and then storm CFB Esquimalt with a hit squad.

“Take them by utter surprise … head-shot, head-shot, head-shot, pop, pop, pop,” he fantasized, adding that he would need to take up model rocketry as a hobby.

“I want to not hurt innocent people, I don’t want to blow myself up but I want to do as much damage to their infrastructure from within. OK, I don’t know how to do that, I don’t have any better ideas.”

Sandford wondered if it all suggested Nuttall wasn’t serious.

“I don’t think so,” the officer insisted.

“I spent time with Mr. Nuttall and that wasn’t the message I was getting. I spent time with Mr. Nuttall, I spent too much time with him. … There was time when I wanted to take time off, I wanted to do other projects instead of doing that one because it was too much.”

The trial continues.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/alleged-2013-canada-day-terror-plot-inspired-by-rambo-iii-court-hears-as-jurors-try-to-suppress-laughter/feed/1stdNuttall, KorodyJonathan Goldstein: Must I do you a solid? If you ask, I will, but please don’t askhttp://news.nationalpost.com/life/jonathan-goldstein-must-i-do-you-a-solid-if-you-ask-i-will-but-please-dont-ask
http://news.nationalpost.com/life/jonathan-goldstein-must-i-do-you-a-solid-if-you-ask-i-will-but-please-dont-ask#commentsSat, 05 Jul 2014 13:30:10 +0000http://life.nationalpost.com/?p=139843

Tuesday. 5:20 p.m. Moving day in Montreal. Unlike the concurrently occurring Canada Day, it is best celebrated without friends. Especially if they are moving.

And so when the phone rings, and I see it’s Tony — who’s in the midst of a crosstown move — rather than picking up the phone, I pick up a beer.

When I have a day off, I get greedy about it — fearful that someone might steal it right out from under me, that in the midst of my beer (presently being enjoyed in a cool bath) the phone will ring and the next thing I know I’ll be crab-walking a piano up a flight of stairs.

5:25 p.m. Guiltily, I check my voice mail. Indeed Tony does need my help. He concludes his message by telling me he “sure could use the solid.”

Being asked for a favour is one thing — but a “solid”?

For me, asking for “solids” is not easily done. I fear that one day I’ll ask for one too many and I’ll be branded a handful by my friends and family.

“May I trouble you for a glass of tap water?” I’d timidly ask, my arms full of chinaware, my hair on fire.

“Needy,” they’d respond, walking away.

These solid-askers are a stronger breed than I, strong enough to go in for the ask — strong enough to bench-press me, my ancestors, the shtetl they fled, and their old milking cows. Why would they even need my help in the first place? They are worth 10 of me!

“Hey bro,” they ask. “I need to borrow your arm. To use as a back scratcher.”

I imagine the look of determination on their faces as they yank my arm free of its socket, how they mop sweat from their brows with my hand — technically, now their hand.

“I’ll totally take good care of it,” they say hanging it up on a closet hook beside a fly swatter.

“Thanks for the solid, bro. My back sure was itchy.”

5:30 p.m. My stomach feels like one of those bingo ball-turners, turning my lunch, breakfast and previous night’s dinner around and around. I feel my consciousness see-saw between the pleasant safety of the present — a solid-free, liquid time — and the horror of the future. It’s safe to say my Canada Day will be ruined. Its just a matter of whether it will be ruined by guilt or hernia.

5:35 p.m. I call Tony. A mover bailed on him, he says, and he needs help picking up a king-size mattress.

There’s an expression that goes something like, “real friends help friends move; but best friends help friends move bodies.” Having moved several king-size mattresses in my life — the way one must fold it to navigate through a tight hallway makes one feel like a cockroach stealing a taco — I’d rather be called upon to move a body.

I get out of the tub as my day becomes Tony’s day and Canada Day slips away for another year.

—Jonathan Goldstein is the host of WireTap on CBC Radio One, airing Saturday at 3:30 p.m. and Thursday at 11:30 p.m. Find podcast links, past columns and his Twitter feed at nationalpost.com/goldstein.

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]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/life/jonathan-goldstein-must-i-do-you-a-solid-if-you-ask-i-will-but-please-dont-ask/feed/0stdmovingToday's letters: Uniting and honouring this great country of ourshttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/todays-letters-uniting-and-honouring-this-great-country-of-ours
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/todays-letters-uniting-and-honouring-this-great-country-of-ours#commentsFri, 04 Jul 2014 04:01:19 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=157750

Re: Canada’s History Wars Rage On, Andrew Coyne, July 3.Some of those who criticize the Harper government’s stance on military history do so because they believe that it is likely driven, not by a genuine desire to celebrate that part of Canada’s history (though that may be a nice byproduct), but because it is a political strategy designed to occupy a rhetorical space that the Liberals do not.

Yet, claiming military prowess is so unbelievably common, it is unimpressive and uninspiring. Since as far back as ancient Egypt (at least), leaders have sought to impress their supporters and enemies with tales of military strength. Big whoop. How about laying claim to something almost uniquely Canadian: The ability for religions, cultures and linguistic groups that are literally at each other’s throats in most parts of the world, to peacefully coexist in one country. That is something to celebrate on Dominion Day.Adam Green, Ottawa.

Andrew Coyne is absolutely right: Our national holiday should still be called Dominion Day. I wonder how many of the Trudeauphiles who engineered the name change thought — as I did, I confess, when I was a pre-teen in the 1940s — that the word “dominion” signified being under the thumb of Britain? It didn’t, and it doesn’t.

Three decades later, I learned that in 1867, our founders named their new country “the Dominion of Canada” based on the biblical quote now carved into the Parliament building: “He (the Creator) shall have dominion also from sea to sea” (Psalm 72:8).

Revising history in an attempt to conform to the ever-changing tides of political trendiness can only result in fragmentation. It’s our shared history that gives us roots.Ron Gray, Abbotsford, B.C.

Re: Canadian Patriotism, Quebec Style, editorial, July 3.
At some point, we will finally begin to leave behind the historic “three tribes” model of Canada, with different laws and languages for each. The truth is that we have become one nation and one strong people. The time has come to embrace a single common language, and one law for all. Ian G. Foulds, Spruce Grove, Alta.

A disservice to Israel

Re: Hamas Is A Group Of Terrorists, Not ‘Militants,’ letters to the editor, July 3.
The views expressed in the letters on the three Israeli teenagers who were abducted and killed, make a number of assumptions: that Hamas is responsible, that violence and prejudice in the area is always the fault of the Palestinians and that the failure of the peace process is entirely their doing. A Palestinian youth was just abducted and burned beyond recognition by three men in what is widely considered retaliation by some Israeli group. The Israeli government has spoken of what sounds like reprisals against the whole Palestinian population.

Your letter writers have to realize that policies that accommodated Israeli expansionism are under scrutiny as they never have been before, and extreme views, such as the ones expressed here, do a disservice to Israel and the cause of peace in the Middle East.Doris Wrench Eisler, St. Albert, Alta.

Once again, the media and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry are jumping to conclusions about the reason why an Arab teen was murdered. We don’t know that this boy was killed by Jews in an act of retaliation, but it hardly matters what the truth is, because sensationalism trumps facts. By blaming this on Jews, the insinuation is that the two dastardly deeds — the kidnapping and cold-blooded murder of three Jewish teens and the murder of this Arab teen — are somehow morally equivalent. This makes it easy for the U.S. and the UN to continue to call for “restraint” on the part of the Israeli forces.Jerome Henen, North Vancouver, B.C.

‘Love for all’

Re: A Doctrine Of Peace, letter to the editor, July 3.
While I like the motto of letter-writer Tayyab Pirzada’s fringe Ahamdiyya religious group — “Love for All, Hatred for None” — I don’t see how it can ever influence the 99% Muslims whose leadership has excommunicated them, and who generally support sharia law.

Ahmadis can only live in peace in the Western countries that provide them with freedom of belief and expression. And that freedom is only possible because the West has been willing to use military force and political power against those states that oppose its culture of individual and religious freedom.Jiti Khanna, Vancouver.

Belittling feminism

Re: At Pride Toronto, Feminist Dogma Trumped Rights, Barbara Kay, July 2.
Barbara Kay clearly does not count herself among us feminists. Since my definition of feminism is simply that men and women are equal, does she consider herself inferior? There is certainly no evidence of that.

Ms. Kay seems to feel a need to defend men, who have dominated and abused women for centuries, and in many cultures continue to do so. I am tired of hearing that men lack the supports that women have. Does Ms. Kay have any concept of how hard women struggled to put those services into place? If men feel they have a lack of services, then they need to stop snivelling and get to work. Mary McKim, London, Ont.

Mannerless jogger

Re: ‘Shirtless Jogger’ Takes Attack In Stride, July 3.
Shirtless jogger Joe Killoran bared something other than his torso when he screamed insults at Toronto Mayor Rob Ford: He displayed an utter lack of self-control and manners. What a poor role model his students have in a teacher of politics no less. It’s a safe bet that no student dared defend the Mayor in his class.Laine Andrews, Toronto.

Not a role model

Re: Red Dawn, July 3.No matter how far Milos Raonic advances at Wimbledon, I will not be one of those who celebrates his achievement, because I don’t believe he has the ethical qualities of a true champion. There is the little matter of the 2013 Rogers Cup when, in a third-round match, Mr. Raonic knowingly touched the net with his hand on break point in the eighth game of the second set.

He did not call the foul on himself. According to news reports at the time, Mr. Raonic explained: “I was fortunate that the line judge didn’t see it. It’s a lucky thing for me.” When asked if he should have called it on himself, he answered: “It’s a big point … do you call it on yourself?” Ah, yes, you do call it on yourself. What a missed opportunity to set an example and to stamp himself a person of honour. Instead, he sent the message that it’s OK to cheat, so long as you get away with it.Joseph Quinn, St. Catharines, Ont.

Just three words, but they’ve been retweeted more than a thousand times: Canadian tennis star Eugenie Bouchard wishing her legions of followers a “Happy Canada Day,” along with a photo of her with the Canadian flag. As in any country, sports stardom and nationalism walk hand in hand in Canada: Just witness the frenzy that surrounded this country’s massive gold medal haul in Vancouver in 2010. But tennis always has been (undeservedly) seen as a second-tier spectator sport in this country. Ms. Bouchard’s massive popularity — along with that of Milos Raonic, who, along with Ms. Bouchard, is heading to a Wimbledon singles semi-final — shows that this is changing.

What’s also notable about Ms. Bouchard is that this proudly Canadian (and fluently bilingual) icon is from Quebec. A few cranky Quebec nationalists have taken issue with the fact that Ms. Bouchard communicates with her international Twitter followers in English, and seems to emphasize her un-asterisked Canadian identity. But we hope and expect they will join with all Canadians in rooting for her in her match against Romania’s Simona Halep.

Might this be part of a trend? Just months ago, in the run-up to Quebec’s provincial election, the sky seemed to be falling on Quebec-Rest-of-Canada relations — as well as on franco-anglo relations within Quebec itself. Then-Premier Pauline Marois had decided (wrongly) that her surest path to re-election lay in fearmongering about all things English and immigrant. Her ministers floated all sorts of notions in this vein — most shamefully, the absurd accusation that English Canadians were seeking to undermine Quebec democracy by stuffing ballot boxes with illegal votes.

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But since that watershed election — in which Ms. Marois’ sour vision for Quebec was definitively rejected — much has changed. Newly elected Premier Philippe Couillard has indicated plainly that he wants to deal with the rest of Canada on a constructive and mature basis, and that he has little time for the theatrics and petulance that characterized his PQ antecedent. This week’s Canada Day parade in Montreal was unusually well-attended, organizers report, with a notable absence of tomato-throwing separatists to ruin the proceedings. (“After all the floats had reached the finish line at Phillips Square, organizers led the crowd in a round of O Canada,” the Gazette reports. “Mayor [Denis] Coderre then had the honour of cutting the first piece of birthday cake, which measured 1.2 by 1.4 metres and could feed 2,500 hungry mouths.”) Even much of the rank-and-file of the Bloc Québécois rose up in revolt when its newly elected leader began emitting rhetoric out of the FLQ era last month.

To top it off, this week former Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe wrote column in the Journal de Montréal praising Canadian “unity.” The dedicated separatist enthused: “I understand why Canadians celebrate July 1st, because Canada is a grand and beautiful country.”

Of course, like hundreds of thousands of other Quebec separatists, Mr. Duceppe dreams of splitting Canada into two. No parade, national birthday or Wimbledon result will change that. Still, it is nice to know that, even as they debate Quebec’s place in Canada, a growing number of Quebecers seem to appreciate what this great nation has to offer. It’s a great way to have celebrated the first Canada Day of the post-Marois era.

With sentiment for Quebec separation at an all-time low, former Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe chose this year’s Canada Day to praise the “unity” of the country he has spent more than 20 years trying to break up.

“What makes the strength of Canadians is their unity, above partisan divisions,” he wrote in a June 29 column published in the Journal de Montreal.

“What continues to make the weakness of Quebec is the division among Quebecers about the national question.”

The column is entitled “It’s been 35 years that I’ve celebrated July 1st,” and carries the twist ending that July 1 is the birthday of Mr. Duceppe’s son, Alexis. Like all other sovereigntist leaders, of course, Mr. Duceppe does not celebrate Canada Day.

Nevertheless, with all apparent earnestness — and even a slight twinge of envy — Mr. Duceppe wrote that he “admires Canadians.”

“I understand why Canadians celebrate July 1st, because Canada is a grand and beautiful country,” he wrote.

Mr. Duceppe added that while Canada’s “federalist” parties do not agree on many things, “these divisions are brushed aside when the time comes to honour their country, Canada.”

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Since 1995, the House of Commons has made a weekly habit of singing a bilingual version of O Canada every Wednesday at 2 p.m. Mr. Duceppe and the other Bloc MPs would quietly sit out the anthem, but the experience appears to have had an effect on the separatist leader.

“All the MPs of these parties sing, by heart, the national anthem. I admire the spirit of unity that guides them when the word Canada is uttered,” he wrote in the column.

Canada’s 147th birthday comes at a historical low for Quebec separatism. In the April 7 Quebec provincial election, the Parti Québécois was handed its smallest share of the vote in 44 years, with many election watchers blaming the party’s decision to make sovereignty a campaign issue.

Mr. Duceppe’s former party still has only four seats in the House of Commons, and is poised to lose two more following the party’s controversial June election of Mario Beaulieu as leader. Mr. Duceppe, 66, led the party from 1997 until 2011.

One Bloc MP dismissed Mr. Beaulieu as an anti-English “clown,” and the new leader earned immediate condemnation from Mr. Duceppe for delivering a victory speech containing the words “nous vaincrons,” a phrase closely association with the terrorist FLQ.

The tattered state of Quebec separatism figured heavily in Mr. Duceppe’s recent column, as he bemoaned the sharp socio-economic splits between different branches of the separatist camp.

Most notably, Mr. Duceppe’s own son Alexis, who shares his birthday with Canada, publicly defied his father’s support for the Parti Québécois in 2012 and sided with the centre-left Option Nationale. “Never, never, never,” the elder Duceppe told a reporter at the time when asked if he planned to follow his son’s lead.

“The Canadians have built a unified country,” Mr. Duceppe wrote on Tuesday. “Quebecers must build their own on a solid foundation, not on the repudiations we propose to federalists.”

Quebecers must build their own on a solid foundation, not on the repudiations we propose to federalists

Of course, the column was not all pro-Canada. Mr. Duceppe ended with a battery of grievances against the federation: He was “saddened” by Canada’s treatment of its francophone and Acadian minorities, “shocked” at its treatment of First Nations and recoiled at its links to the British Crown.

Since the 1990s, in the lead-up to previous Canada Days, the Bloc has regularly taken the opportunity to complain about Quebec’s share of federal Canada Day spending.

Most recently, in 2009 Bloc MP Carole Lavallée pointed to $3.2-million earmarked for Quebec’s Canada Day celebrations and called it evidence of Ottawa’s “desire to force-feed Quebec like some sort of goose.”

Despite the political divisions among the Duceppe family, the former Bloc leader said he loves Alexis “profoundly” and had prepared “feverishly” for his July 1 birthday.

With his black Escalade waiting and a pained smile across his face, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford glanced up at the sky and appeared to be just waiting for it to be over.

He had just walked a full parade route in 29C heat and 55% humidity and was perspiring, but perhaps not as much as before the 60 days in rehab, from which he’d just emerged an apparent 70 pounds lighter.

Under the beating sun, Mr. Ford bowed the three bows that would finish a ceremony paying respect to the Chinese railroad workers who built Canada’s tracks. He looked like he might topple over, if not for the hordes of people with arms around him asking for just one more picture.

Laura Pedersen/National PostToronto Mayor Rob Ford marches in the National Congress of Chinese Canadians' Canada Day parade in Toronto, Ontario on Tuesday, July 1, 2014

It was merely four hours into a punishing 12-hour day of campaigning his team deems critical for the triumphant return of Ford Nation to this protracted mayoral race, which ends at the polls on Oct. 27. In many ways it’s Act II — the day after Mr. Ford’s return from rehabilitation, he’s an apologetic, “changed man” ready for a second chance. But the reaction amongst Torontonians was mixed.

American comedian Jimmy Kimmel, who has had a field day poking fun at Mr. Ford, was ecstatic to have him back. So was the crowd at the CHIN Canada Day Picnic on the Lakeshore, an annual event that celebrates Toronto’s multiculturalism, which gave him a standing ovation as he took the stage Tuesday afternoon after an introduction as the city’s “best-known mayor.”

His reception earlier in the day, however, was markedly less welcoming.

“Shame on you! You’re a disgrace to our city!” people on the streets of one east Toronto neighbourhood yelled as Mr. Ford marched in the their Canada Day parade.

“People have a million questions about your lying, your corruption. You are a corrupt, lying, racist homophobe,” a shirtless jogger who identified himself as Joe Killoran yelled in the Ford brothers’ direction.

Laura Pedersen/National PostToronto Mayor Rob Ford marches in the National Congress of Chinese Canadians' Canada Day parade in Toronto, Ontario on Tuesday, July 1, 2014.

“It’s one thing to be sick, that’s fine. But he has questions to answer to the people of Toronto,” he told the media.

When asked if he worked for any of the other mayoral campaigns, Mr. Killoran said “Do I look like I’m with a campaign? I’m just an East York guy out for a jog.”

Ford Nation is letting this all roll off their backs, attributing the heckling to rivals’ plants and challenging high-profile mayoral opponents Olivia Chow and John Tory to take their campaigns to the next level. Polls put Ms. Chow in the lead, followed by Mr. Ford and then Mr. Tory.

“When you watch their poll numbers come down, they’re all angry out there. There’s nothing positive coming from them, there’s no platform,” Doug Ford told the National Post at city hall Tuesday when Mr. Ford was between events. “Obviously when you walk out and you have them on one side of the street and no one even acknowledges they’re there and they got Rob as a rock star going down the street, there you go, that’s the difference.”

Asked if such a gruelling return to the campaign trail was a lot for a person just out of rehabilitation (he checked out Monday morning, went home to see his family and then straight to city hall to address the media, his spokesperson said Tuesday), Councillor Doug Ford shrugged. ”Not at all,” he said.

Laura Pedersen/National PostToronto Mayor Rob Ford sings "Oh Canada" while people take photos of him shortly before marching in the National Congress of Chinese Canadians' Canada Day parade in Toronto, Ontario on Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Indeed, the only thing Mr. Ford would tell reporters Tuesday was that he felt “fantastic” after the 60 days in rehabilitation for drugs and alcohol and largely out of the public eye since early May when a damning video of him holding what appeared to be drug paraphernalia and audio of him making lewd comments about mayoral opponent Karen Stintz triggered his voluntary leave.

He didn’t take questions Monday either, after giving a nearly 20-minute long apology.

Brett Gundlock / Getty ImagesA Rob Ford supporter shows off his t-shirt, while Toronto Mayor Rob Ford addresses media on his first day back to work June 30, 2014 in Toronto.

“It was never my intention to embarrass the city or offend my fellow members of council,” he said. “I deeply regret some of the personal choices I have made. I now realize that I was blind to the dangers of some of the company I kept. And those associations have ended.”

He also took the chance to reboot his mayoral campaign. ”With your support, I am resolved to continue to work harder than ever for the taxpayers of this great city,” he said to the group of 12 or so media gathered — handpicked by the mayor’s campaign team at the exclusion of many other journalists.

Mr. Ford will be back in council Wednesday at an executive committee meeting for which he is already prepared, his staff said Tuesday.

His interactions during the string of Canada Day events he criss-crossed the city for, in a new shirt for each event, appeared largely jovial if a little unsure. He clutched the hand of his young son, Doug, through the National Congress of Chinese Canadians, dancing with him at times, hoisting him up and tying the little boy’s shoelace.

He gamely posed for photos with anyone who wanted one — and a lot of people did.

“We’ve always wanted to see him. We see him on TV all the time. I really like him, no matter what he did. He’s my favourite,” said Gilaj Nasib, a well-wisher who posed for a selfie with Mr. Ford at the CHIN Picnic. ”I love everything about him. He’s the best mayor we’ve had so far. … I like that he took everything seriously and went to counselling.

“ Before he drove away from the railway monument Tuesday afternoon, a woman walking her miniature poodle tapped on Mr. Ford’s window, which he rolled down. She said a few words to him and kissed his hand.

Asked what she told the mayor, the woman, who would not give her name, kept mum. ”It’s personal,” she said.

National Post, with files from Richard Warnica sboesveld@nationalpost.com Twitter.com/sarahboesveld

Laura Pedersen/National PostToronto Mayor Rob Ford poses for pictures with parade-goers after marching in the National Congress of Chinese Canadians' Canada Day parade in Toronto, Ontario on Tuesday, July 1, 2014.

On about 15 metres of shelving at the British Library in London is a collection of Canadian images that curator Philip Hatfield calls “one of the most wonderful, idiosyncratic and personality-filled sets of photographs I’ve ever seen.”

Dating from about 100 years ago, the collection features scenes of spectacular destruction from the frontier, some of the last images of First Nations struggling to maintain a traditional way of life and hundreds of photos of tough, corn-fed Canadians doing battle with everything from moose to bears to Germans to winter.

Altogether, “you get a really strong sense of what it means to be Canadian,” said Mr. Hatfield, a Briton who wrote his PhD on the collection.

For Canada Day, the National Post presents these “greatest hits.” The featured image, by the way, depicts early 20th century members of the Sechelt Indian Band performing a Passion Play.

Despite his doughy appearance, Canada’s Sir Arthur Currie is generally recognized as one of the most capable commanders on the Western Front of the Great War. There are arguably thousands of Canadians alive today who would not be around if their ancestors had gone to battle under a less skillful commander. Here, Sir Currie is being forced to pose with an adorable dog.

Henry Charles White / British Library“Cheerful sufferers.”

The one major thing left out of historical photos and paintings is just how sick and injured everybody was all the time. These two men in 1920 are no exception, but at least they put on a smile.

Fred L. Hacking / British LibraryExtract from a set of two photographs from the year 1900, marking the commencement of the 20th century.

In this photo set from 1900, one man races towards the “20th century” on a children’s tricycle, before it collapses. It is unclear what the photo was used for, aside from the fact that it was meant to be played for laughs.

Frederick George Goodenough / British LibraryHMS Olympic under way, 1919

It’s not quite the Titanic, but in this 1919 photo, the Titanic’s near-identical sister ship, the Olympic, is photographed steaming out of Halifax harbour. The Olympic’s hardier older sister actually has a prominent role in Canadian history: By war’s end, it held the record for carrying more Canadian troops to Europe than any other.

Photographer unknown / British LibraryAvalanche clearance

In 1908, Canada fended off avalanches much the same as it does now: By firing artillery shells at snow. This photo, presumably taken near the Rocky Mountains, shows the dramatic aftermath of one such attack on the Canadian wilderness.

Alfred Steadworthy / British LibraryRivals, 1916

This doctored photo of a speeding locomotive surrounded by lightning bolts, carries the vague caption of “rivals.” Perhaps the photographer was trying to convey the battle between steam power and electrical power, or he was hinting that the awesome power of Canada’s rail system had come close to rivalling that of the heavens themselves.

British LibraryThis commercial image from 1898 Toronto is captioned “All Coons Look Alike to Me” and even includes a couple of bars of music inviting the viewer to sing aloud about their inability to differentiate black people.

Among comparable multicultural nations, Canada has a pretty admirable record on race relations. Of course, this only came after many, many decades of surprisingly blatant discrimination. This commercial image from 1898 Toronto is captioned “All Coons Look Alike to Me” and even includes a couple of bars of music inviting the viewer to sing aloud about their inability to differentiate black people.

Canadian Northern Railway Company / British LibraryCanoe man stepping on back of bull moose, 1914

This photo was taken several decades before the advent of Canadian Medicare, but that didn’t stop this unidentified man from jumping out of his canoe to attempt to ride a 600 pound moose. For the record, riding wildlife is now illegal.

John G. Dickson / British LibraryA sleigh motor cycle, 1914

Before snowmobile inventor Joseph-Armand Bombardier had even picked up his first wrench, Canadians were already recklessly slapping skis on anything with a motor. In this 1914 photo, a moustachioed man proudly displays his “sleigh motor cycle,” complete with a fur-wearing lady in the sidecar. It is worth noting that there is almost no way to stop this thing.

In an era when Europeans were lusting over fragile, pale-skinned ladies in bone-crunching corsets, it is good to know that Canadian men appreciated a woman who knew her way around a pair of skates. This 1903 photo from the “Canadian Hockey Girl Series” shows a female hockey player known to history only as “My Hockey Queen.”

A century after the Great War, citizens in Northern France are still regularly killed by long-buried artillery shells worming their way to the surface and exploding. Chances are good that a fair number of these antique munition had their origins in a Canadian factory. During the latter stages of WWI, the largest business in all of Canada, with 250,000 workers, was the Imperial Munitions Board. In this 1915 photo, a Canadian craftsman calmly puts the finishing touches on a shell that most Canadians hoped would soon be killing as many Germans as possible.

B. W. Leeson / British LibraryThe evening of his race. 1913

In the early 20th century, it was a common belief among Canadian white society that the country’s Aboriginal culture would soon be completely extinct. Some even appeared to romanticize the notion, as evidenced by this photo illustration entitled “The Evening of His Race.” Created by West Coast photographer B.W. Leeson, the elder and village depicted are likely those of the G̱usgimukw peoples of northern Vancouver Island.

If the recent whale hubbub in Newfoundland is any indication, a few beached whales is always a surefire way to liven things up in a Canadian coastal community. That was surely the case in 1918 River John, Nova Scotia, where dozens of beached pilot whales prompted locals to head down to the shore and take turns standing on the “monsters of the deep.”

William J. Carpenter / British Library
Vancouver firemen jumping into life net. 1910

Vancouver, like virtually every other major settlement in North America, was destroyed by fire early in in its history. In this 1910 photo, Vancouver firefighters show their readiness for future conflagrations by catching a colleague in a life net.

Canadian Postcard Company / British Library“German Submarine, Toronto, from an Aeroplane.” 1920

With WWI over, hundreds of seasoned Canadian airmen returned home to become bush pilots and begin conquering the most remote reaches of their sprawling homeland. But first, they had aerial photos to take. This 1919 photo is one of a massive post-war series and captures the Toronto waterfront, where a gaggle of people have gathered to check out another prize of the First World War: A captured German U-Boat.

William Notman and Son / British LibrarySir Charles Tupper and Hugh John Macdonald. Photo B. 1900

Hugh John Macdonald served in both the North-West Rebellion and the Red River Rebellion, he was a premier of Manitoba, a federal member of parliament and if his gangly physique didn’t tip you off, he was the only son of inaugural Canadian Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald. Here, he smiles warmly while Sir Charles Tupper, the shortest-serving Prime Minister in Canadian history, scowls at something in the distance.

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Last year’s list, created before Canada’s vocal diplomatic rift with Russian President Vladimir Putin over incursions in Ukraine, does not include Russia — but Russian officials are likely unwelcome at receptions this year.

Canada’s relations with Burma have improved in recent years, and last year’s list allowed civilian Burmese officials to attend Canada Day receptions.

An accompanying memorandum from deputy minister Morris Rosenberg also notes that the restrictions on invitations apply for events being held within Canada as well.

“The same considerations would apply to any official Canada Day event hosted in Ottawa and involving the local diplomatic corps,” he said.

The memo and related materials were obtained under the Access to Information Act, with a few parts blacked out under an exemption protecting international relations.

Asked to comment on the list, a department spokesman said “it is not our practice to provide lists of country representatives invited or not invited to functions held at our missions abroad.”

“I’m afraid that’s all I have at this point,” Ian Trites said in an email.

Trites did not respond to specific questions about Russia’s status on this year’s persona non grata list.

Canada has applied sanctions against more than five dozen Russians and others linked to the Ukraine crisis, while Russia has imposed sanctions against more than a dozen Canadians in retaliation.

One of Russia’s close allies, Belarus, appears on the 2013 list with the most detailed explanation for its exclusion.

“The most recent election, held in December 2010, was marred by a lack of transparency in the vote counting process, a violent crackdown on protesters, and the detention of most of the opposition presidential candidates,” says the document.

“Given the current situation in Belarus — which continues to deteriorate — Canada sees no reason to modify its policy of limited engagement.”

On Friday, Foreign Affairs publicly released another list, naming the countries favoured for foreign aid from Canada. The document added Burma and six others to the 20 countries first identified in the 2009 version, while dropping Pakistan and Bolivia.

REUTERS/Rob Hornstra/The Sochi Project/HandoutRob Hornstra of the Netherlands has won the first prize Arts and Entertainment Stories with the series "The Sochi Project: Sochi Singers". Marika Bajur sings 'Kuriu' in the restaurant Eurasia. The southern Russian city of Sochi lies on the Black Sea and attracts predominantly Russian holidaymakers who come for a mix of sun, sea, sand and nightlife. Restaurants are plentiful and competition is fierce, with every restaurant employing a regular live musician blasting Russian chansons and popsa.

Lin’s Takeout, St. Peter’s Bay, P.E.I.

Studding a lolling hillside on the road to Greenwich Provincial Park, Lin’s Take Out is the definition of summertime on Prince Edward Island. Little more than a trailer surrounded by picnic benches, hot food is dished out in gingham-lined baskets; those baskets are filled with some unexpected specialties like puffed and golden perogies, and homespun sausages using local beef, as well as none-too-surprising lobster burgers (huge hunks of fresh lobster on a bun), and fries made from potatoes pulled from the famous red earth. Best is the scallop burger: gently sautéed sea scallops tucked into a soft bun along with a slice of tomato, lettuce leaf, a touch of mayo — done. Lin’s gets bonus points for their permanent “garage sale” where one can purchase sundry styles of answering machines for a song.What’s nearby? You’re just five clicks from genteel St. Peter’s Bay and four minutes to the warm waters and grassy dunes of Greenwich. You can also hit Basin Head Provincial Park to swim and hear the singing sands, or ride the 300-kilometre Confederation Trail bike path, which runs from one end of the island to the other. pointseastcoastaldrive.com/places-eat/entry/lins-take-out

La Terrasse À Steve, Miscou Island, N.B.

This spot on the Acadian Peninsula is a seaside seafood shack that feels more like the Florida Keys than northern New Brunswick. All weathered lobster traps, sunshine, salt air, and a dog scratching himself, you’re surrounded by day boats, right on the water. Everything is local and homemade with heart by Steve Bezeau (who is also a lobster broker) and crew. Toes in sand and fresh seafood on order, appetizers include lobster maki (lest you forget you’re in one of the great lobster producing areas of the world), New Brunswick mussels and sweet, plump Maison Beausoleil oysters, all unfussily prepared and plated on paper. Mains run from stuffed lobster to baked mackerel with potatoes, all washed down with Pump House Ale.What’s nearby? The historic Miscou Lighthouse (standing watch over Miscou Island), loads of good swimming beaches, the Peal Bog Trail, and on a clear day you can see the Percé Rock, one of the planet’s largest natural arches in water, a huge sheer rock formation in the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the tip of Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula. ilesacadiennes.ca/fr/profil/la-terrasse-a-steve

REUTERS/Damir SagoljDamir Sagolj of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a Reuters photographer based in Thailand, has won the first prize Daily Life Singles with this photograph of a picture of North Korea's founder, Kim Il-sung, decorating a building in the capital Pyongyang October 5, 2011.

Kokom’s Bannock Shack, Dryden, Ontario

It’s not just for summertime’s pow wow season anymore. At Kokom’s Bannock Shack, a popular mobile vendor that finally laid roots as a full-fledged restaurant at Dryden’s Golden Mile Plaza on Hwy 17 late last year, made-to-order bannock is a family affair with three generations whipping up fry dough back in the kitchen. (Kokom means “grandmother” in Ojibway.) Owners Bruce Dowzwell and Josee Racicot are from Eagle Lake and Lac Des Mille Lacs First Nations, respectively. Native artwork flanks the walls while outsized meals of bannock flank the plates. There’s beefy bannock burgers, bannock dogs (their version of pig in a blanket), the Wagon Wheel (thick slice of bologna with mustard served on fresh bannock), deep-fried pickles (yum), and Moose Balls for dessert (think: bannock Timbits, fried and rolled in cinnamon sugar.)What’s nearby? Located on the Trans Canada highway midway between Winnipeg and Thunder Bay, Dryden is the smallest community in Ontario to be designated as a city, with a population of just 8,195 stretching over 125.7 square kilometres. Canoe or kayaking on some of the same pristine routes taken by the fur traders, or explore the Laura Howe Marsh, a wetland within the city limits. Meanwhile, the Wabigoon Chain of lakes means primo fishing for walleye, lake trout, northern pike, bass and muskie. goldenmileplazaonline.com/#!kokoms-bannock-shack/c1sef

Richmond has an ace in the hole with Pajo’s Fish & Chips at the wharf. Or should I say, on the wharf

Integrity foods, Riverton, Manitoba

As far as summer road trips go, driving Hwy 8 though Selkirk to Gimli isn’t too shabby, with its lakeside views, and Icelandic oddities (early area settlers were Icelanders and their imprint remains on everything from Kris’ Fish ’n’ Chips, to Reykjavik Bakery and the Icelandic Museum). And then there’s Integrity Foods in Riverton. Run by a sweet Mennonite couple, you want to stop here for Pizza Night. What this entails is a pizza picnic on the farm, where the crust is made with organic spelt flour, meat toppings include local bison and grass-fed beef pepperoni, and the cheese is Manitoba made Bothwell. (The sauce and veggies are from the garden, natch.) Made-to-order pizzas are baked in a wood-fired stone oven in the middle of the yard while you walk around and meet the farmer and enjoy the environs.What’s nearby? Besides the opportunity to be an artisan baker for a day (learn bread-making and baking around the wood-fired oven for $125 per class), you can hike Judah’s Trail on the farm and get up close and personal with the rabbit warren, chicken pen, and the goats and llamas. (Pizza and baby llamas: Best day ever?) Farther afield, go birdwatching or biking at Hecla / Grindstone Provincial Park, or take a chill pill and head up to Lakeview Hecla Resort and hit the just-opened Salka Spa. integrityfoods.ca/activities

Pajo’s fish & Chips, Steveston, B.C.

All beatific oceanfront vistas, farmer’s fields and trendy coffee shops, the historic fishing village of Steveston, which is part of Richmond, which is a suburb of Vancouver, has an ace in the hole with Pajo’s Fish & Chips at the wharf. Or should I say, on the wharf, seeing as Pajo’s is a decades old floating seafood shack where they fry local cod, salmon and the creme-de-la-creme, halibut, all served in paper cones sided by killer slaw, tartar sauce and fresh cut fries. Not only is the fish insanely fresh, but just as delicious. There’s something to the batter — an unidentifiable flavour that you wouldn’t think would be in there but totally works. (It’s not vanilla, but that’s the idea.) Basically, if clouds were filled with tender fish, then battered and
deep-fried, this is what they’d taste like.What’s nearby? Visit the Steveston Fish Market on Fisherman’s Wharf and cook up some fresh catch of your own. You can also go whale watching, learn about Steveston’s maritime history at the Gulf of Georgia Cannery, and on Canada Day, there’s a big salmon festival and parade. As for non-maritime endeavours, visit a Buddhist temple, check out the architectural magnificence that is the Olympic Oval (it’s like a symphony on ice), eat the best Chinese food in North America at the Golden Village, and hit summer’s foodie Night Market, too. pajos.com

Westside Grill & TacoFino, Tofino, B.C.

Here’s a West Coast two-fer, for yer: Wildside Grill and TacoFino are both located in the same parking lot in the wilds of Tofino. But while TacoFino is a fan favourite (their Chocolate Diablo cookies are worth the trip alone down the Pacific Rim Highway), let’s take a closer look at the lesser-known Wildside Grill, run by a commercial fisherman and a chef. Wild Baja-style fish tacos start with grilled corn tortillas, which are mounded with Monterey Jack cheese, cabbage slaw, local ling cod fried in a light tempura batter, a bright tomato salsa and fresh cilantro with a lime on top. Meanwhile, the gigantic Cod Club means panko-fried ling cod on a whole wheat bun with bacon, avocado, tomatillo sauce, wee pink salad shrimp, and sweet chili mayo, sided by fresh cut fries. All of this homemade goodness, plus al fresco seating amid a temperate rain forest.What’s nearby? You can go surfing (I had a great lesson at The Surf Club at Long Beach Resort), paddleboarding, beachcombing or hit the Rainforest Trail for a nature walk in Pacific Rim National Park under the most majestic trees you’ve ever seen. Or, head into “town” and visit Roy Henry Vickers’ Eagle Aerie Gallery and feast your eyes on some stunning artwork. wildsidegrill.com/menu.php

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/life/travel/roadside-satisfied-six-cross-canada-food-stops-worth-pulling-over-for/feed/0std00056644A.jpgClaude St. Aubin/Jordan ComelyFlickr: steveandtwylaJohn Ivison: Celebrating the small differences as Canadian identity becomes more like U.S.http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/john-ivison-celebrating-the-small-differences-as-canadian-identity-becomes-more-like-u-s
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/john-ivison-celebrating-the-small-differences-as-canadian-identity-becomes-more-like-u-s#commentsSat, 28 Jun 2014 00:28:00 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=157519

Americans don’t know much about Canada and much of what they do know they appear to have learned from the TV sitcom How I Met Your Mother — that the most Canadian place in the universe is the Tim Hortons around the corner from the Hockey Hall of Fame and that butterscotch is for Canadian women what chocolate is for American women.

The latter is true. The sticky mix of brown sugar and butter may have been invented in 19th century Yorkshire but has been adopted with enthusiasm by Canada’s fairer sex.

Joni Mitchell sang about it in Chelsea Morning: “The sun shone in like butterscotch/ and stuck to all my senses.”

Dairy Queen says that nowhere in North America has more butterscotch been smothered over sundaes than in Canada.

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But unfortunately for ‘scotch lovers, the taste never took hold south of the border and DQ has discontinued the topping. Consumers in Canada could still request butterscotch as late as last year but supplies have dried up.

Matthew, a franchise manager in Ottawa, says he is asked frequently for butterscotch by older customers. “I wish I could serve it. It would make my life easier,” he said.

Cole Burston/Daily GleanerHenk Tepper is welcomed home by friends and family as he arrives at his Drummond, New Brunswick home on Sunday April 1, 2012.

A website has sprung up asking Dairy Queen to bring back butterscotch but an uncaring U.S. public has spoken and the 226 calorie DQ Brazier Butterscotch dipped cone has now joined Clearly Canadian Alpine Fruit and Berries and Dunkaroos in the great consumer brand cemetery in the sky.

Life goes on but it’s sobering to stop and reflect in the run up to Canada Day that there goes another of the things that make us different. We share so many values with our giant neighbour to the south that we rely on the narcissism of small differences like bagged milk and poutine to preserve our feeling of separateness and self (not least of which is our spelling ­ — the auto-correct on my MacBook just tried to force me to write “neighbor”).

We often exaggerate the differences to mask how similar we are.

We rejoice in the description of Canadians as “unarmed Americans with a health plan,” but we grow more alike with each passing year.

We still celebrate Thanksgiving in October, not November; we take our shoes off when we enter someone else’s house; we say sorry when someone stands on our toes. We have lower infant mortality, murder rates and health-care costs. We have better beer, bacon and chocolate bars. We are the second largest land mass and the first nation of hockey.

But unless we float our half of the continent off into the Arctic Ocean, we are destined to become ever more like our American cousins.

The Canadianization of the mass media was imposed by government fiat with various Broadcasting Acts that ensured the carriage of Canadian content. But in the digital age, the broadcast regulator is as impotent as a bullock. For a generation of YouTubers, the concept of watching anything longer than three minutes — far less mandated Canadian content — is risible.

There are other changes, almost imperceptible, often imposed in the name of efficiency, that will create a very different country than the one we live in now.

Companies like Target Corp. complain that different regulations increase costs and reduce selection on things like camping tents. But tents have different standards for a reason — flammability performance. Canadian specifications are more stringent than the voluntary industry standards in the U.S. No prizes for guessing which regulations will be adopted if tents are subject to common requirements — ­ the precedent has already been set for things like wholesale meat cuts, where the U.S. standard is now the norm.

Another provision in the cross-border policy agreement is a rule that allows U.S. police to take part in law enforcement in Canadian territorial waters ­ with reciprocity for the Mounties in the States. This has attracted criticism because of the difference in laws, sentencing, evidence rules and police complaints procedures ­ not to mention the legal immunity that American officers would have in Canada.

None of these things on their own define what it is to be Canadian but their cumulative effect creates a sense of identity.

Despite the apparently inexorable drift towards closer ties, it’s telling that there has been no enthusiasm for political union. A United North America campaign, seeking democratic unification of Canada and the U.S., has gone nowhere.

Like our American friends, we love liberty, the rule of law, freedom of speech and religion, free trade and democracy. But we remain anxious about cultural homogeneity ­ and proud of our otherness.

All the more reason to celebrate our small differences. As we toast 147 years of Canada, we should rejoice that our cream soda is pink, not brown; that we drink homo milk; and that we have the coolest waterfall in the Niagara Gorge.

They can take away our butterscotch but they will never take away our Horseshoe Falls.

At risk of understatement, media portraits of John Nuttall and Amanda Korody, accused of trying to blow up Canada Day celebrations in Victoria, are not those of terrorist masterminds. Nor are there reports of a greater threat to be weeded out — just the opposite — of any radicalizing influence beyond what you can find on YouTube. A former acquaintance described Nuttall as “a combustible human being with little sense of morals or repercussions” — he has a criminal record for vicious assaults both random and targeted. In radical Islam, he may just have found another ignition source. Or an excuse.

Of course it’s true that most terrorist perpetrators are idiots, but they often present as purposeful idiots. These two seemed to have little purpose in life at all. Of course it’s true that hapless morons can do an awful lot of damage with bomb plans downloaded from the Internet and a fistful of Canadian Tire money. But these guys couldn’t even pull that off; according to police, the bombs they planted weren’t bombs at all. If only all would-be bombers screamed about jihad into their cell phones on the sidewalk in front of their neighbours’ houses, they wouldn’t be such a menace.

In light of all this, in Thursday’s Ottawa Citizen, columnist Terry Glavin suggested we might all be taking all this a bit too seriously. He keyed in especially on Premier Christy Clark’s sonorous reference to the accused wanting — she suspected — to “take control of our streets, our cities, our institutions.” Contrast it with what we know about the pair — Mr. Nuttall’s former acquaintance’s quipped that he hadn’t “the capability to type the word ‘manifesto’, never mind create or follow one” — and that does start to look a little over the top.

“Is it OK to laugh now?” asked Mr. Glavin.

That’s an interesting question. Some failed terrorist attackers certainly make good, therapeutic black comedy. In my view it depends on two main factors: the comfortableness of the circumstances they forsook; and, of course, the spectacularity of their failure.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, for example, was born to a fabulously rich Nigerian banker, embraced radical Islam in his teens, was ratted out by his father to the CIA after he disappeared in Yemen, and still managed to get aboard a Northwest Airlines flight with a bomb — which did nothing but set his pants on fire. He’ll be in jail for the rest of his life.

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That’s pretty funny. But for my money, Islamic terrorism’s greatest comedic triumph — the Derek and Clive Come Again of jihad — remains the 2007 bombing attempt on Glasgow Airport. The attackers, a British-born medical doctor and an Indian-born engineer pursuing a PhD, had more than the means to be upstanding members of society. And having turned their backs on it, this is what they managed to pull off: They smashed an SUV full of propane into some concrete bollards; the SUV caught fire; they caught fire; and then they went running around the place, on fire, until they were beaten into submission by angry Scots, including a baggage handler-cum-folk hero named John Smeaton whose bravery and post-attack trash talk basically made everyone even prouder to be Scottish than they were the day before. It was more pep rally than terrorist attack.

But the alleged Victoria plot isn’t tickling my funny bone. It’s certainly not because I feel any sympathy towards the accused, or because I’m afraid all sorts of other “drug-addled deadbeats” (as Glavin called them) will suddenly decide to vent their angst via improvised explosive device.

There’s just something terribly sad about the glimpse Mr. Nuttall’s and Ms. Korody’s tales offer us of those living right on the margins of society: the addictions, the threat of homelessness, the squalid conditions and empty methadone bottles that a Vancouver Sun reporter discovered in their basement apartment, the disconnection from family — Ms. Korody’s cousin wistfully told The Province of her artistic talents in happier days, before addictions took hold.

We may not be laughing. But we’re also not dismissing the plot

As I say, I’ll reserve my sympathy for the all but two Canadians in similar situations who don’t decide to blow up their fellow citizens. But I can’t even wring black humour out of lives so unhappy culminating in such a senseless, violent idea.

Ms. Clark’s moment of grandiloquence aside, though, I think British Columbians and Canadians are handling the situation pretty well. In 2010, when jihadist bumbler Faisal Shahzad failed to blow up a car bomb in Times Square, respectable American politicians and newspapers were demanding an American citizen on American soil be treated as an enemy combatant. In Victoria, after Premier Clark’s speech, the National Post reported that she posed for photos with “a small crowd of tourists” in attendance, who were “bedecked in Hawaiian shirts, Tilley hats and fanny packs.”

We may not be laughing. But we’re also not dismissing the plot out of hand, as some did early on in the Toronto 18 saga. You might even suggest we’re finally doing this anti-terrorism thing … properly.

In the court of law, one has a presumption of innocence. In the media, though, there’s no such thing.

Alleged child porn collectors or pedophiles are named on TV, radio and in print as soon as they’re arrested, and often have their picture published. Suspects in murders are named upon arrest, too, and their backgrounds exhaustively studied (see the recent example of Dellen Millard in Ontario for an example of that). Pretty much any crime worth a headline will result in someone being named, publicly, perhaps before they’ve even had their first court appearance.

Such was the case with Amanda Korody and John Stuart Nuttall, arrested on Tuesday over allegations that they intended to bomb — indeed, attempted to bomb — Canada Day celebrations at the British Columbia legislature in Victoria. Korody and Nuttall have been described by the press as punks, junkies and incompetents. A prior criminal conviction against Nuttall — for possession of a dangerous weapon — also has been reported.

The press, and the broader public, is understandably interested in the backgrounds of these individuals. It’s only natural to wonder what kind of person would (allegedly) seek to carry out a mass casualty attack in a peaceful city such as Victoria.

But they haven’t been convicted of anything yet. And that’s important: Whether the allegation is terrorism or child molestation, the allegation itself can ruin lives.

Terrorists and pedophiles are probably the two least popular groups of human beings out there, but they still have the legal right to a presumption of innocence. What good is it to honour that right in the courts if, after potentially being acquitted of all charges, the former suspect’s life is ruined anyway?

How many teachers have been accused of inappropriate contact with a student, and once acquitted, been unemployable anyway? How many people applying to rent an apartment are turned down because the first thing a prospective landlord sees when he Googles their name is that they were arrested for drug trafficking, even though the charges were bogus?

This isn’t a black and white issue. There are, in many instances, legitimate reasons for the police to publicly name a suspect, even one who is already in custody. For instance, police often appeal to the public for more information after a suspect is arrested because they believe that more victims have yet to come forward. Police may also believe that there are witnesses to a crime who will speak with officers only once they know a potentially dangerous suspect is already locked up.

But in many cases, the person named ends up being acquitted — or is never even charged with a crime. In those cases, media organizations don’t give these developments nearly the same prominence as they do the original arrests. In many cases, they don’t even report it all. And there is no effective way for the affected citizens to go about getting references to their arrests deleted from the Internet. They can try suing every site that mentions the accusations, but unless they have very deep pockets and limitless patience, they won’t get anywhere. The Internet is too big and too diffuse for that.

This isn’t a new problem. But it may have recently entered new territory. On Thursday, newspapers across the country ran photos taken of the interior of Nuttall and Korody’s apartment, which their landlord had opened to the media. Images of their sloppy home, or objects contained therein, appeared in the Victoria Times Colonist, The Province, the Globe and Mail and, yes, the National Post. A report by the QMI News Agency indicated that reporters and photographers were wandering the house, opening drawers, reading personal notebooks and peering into closets.

This is a grotesque invasion of Nuttall and Korody’s privacy, and was very possibly illegal. The B.C. Civil Liberties Association has claimed that a landlord may enter a dwelling without consent under only very narrow circumstances, and that giving the media a tour doesn’t qualify. The landlord, in turn, claims the media should have known better than him as to when they can and cannot enter a home.

Nuttall and Korody are accused of a very serious crime, and if convicted, should be thrown away for life. But we need to be very careful here. The media, and the public, already accepts the naming of alleged criminals as a matter of routine, despite ample evidence that this practice can destroy innocent lives. Are we really sure we want to allow photographers to wander the homes of those who remain innocent until proven guilty, too?

As a new Canadian, I beg to differ with the letter writer who would replace “Canada Day” with “Confederation Day.” Patriotism is immensely, if not solely, associated with a country’s name and many acts that may or may not enhance the prestige of the country are secondary in nature. When I came to this country, my first endeavor was to know more about Canada. At college, we learned a poem by Irish poet. I still remember asking the lecturer — in my eagerness to know more about Canada — if we could have a Canadian poet in the curriculum, as the class was full of newcomers.

Over the years, I’ve realized that I knew more about Canada than many Canadians. “Legislated multiculturalism” has certainly not been a hindrance.

The makeup of Canada is entirely different now than in 1867. People come here for what Canada stands for now, and what it offers to make their lives better. At the same time, the sense of history of the country must permeate down to the new generations.

This wonderful little montage of a story described things called “Canada” in other lands. But it did not mention perhaps the poignant story of all. When prisoners arrived at the Auschwitz concentration camp in occupied Poland, they were either put to death or put to work. Almost all children and most women were put to deaths. The Nazis needed someone to sort through all the possessions confiscated from the new arrivals, looking for anything valuable or useful. This became the most coveted job for female prisoners at Auschwitz. The Jewish women called this pitiful little field where this sorting happened “Canada” — because it was a place of abundance.

Bill Baird, Oshawa, Ont.

What is with all the Canada Day stuff in the weekend edition of the paper? Very unCanadian.

As a civilian public affairs officer working for the Department of National Defence in Calgary, I was deployed to High River on June 21 to support 1st Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry in its flood response efforts. The town was a mess, the damage is devastating and people’s emotions are going to boil over. Leaving unsecured weapons under these circumstances not a good idea, and the RCMP did right thing to impound weapons. There was at least one violent confrontation between a town resident and the RCMP at the security perimeter, with a 12-inch knife pulled on the Mounties. Town staff, Mounties and military busted their asses to support local population, and the Mounties don’t need to be given any grief for a very sensible decision. You don`t leave weapons and ammo unsecured —ever.

Eric Cameron, Calgary.

Since when does the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) openly criticize the RCMP for doing its job? Where is the response from RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson, defending his force’s actions? The PMO would be highly critical of the RCMP if a citizen was shot by a person with a stolen gun from one of the flooded homes.

The RCMP was right in seizing the guns.

Calvin Lawrence, (RCMP ret’d), Ottawa.

In their zeal to provide “peace, order and good government,” the authorities in High River have infantilized the population to such an extent that they may never regain the trust necessary to govern. The condescension on display by the town’s Mayor and the RCMP makes one wonder how people ever managed to get out of bed in the morning without the benevolent support of the state. If the authorities we’re so smart , why did they allow a community to be built on a flood plain that experiences variants of a ” 100 ” year flood every five or 10 years? Perhaps they should follow Toronto’s lead in the aftermath of Hurricane Hazel, where much of the flooded land along the Humber River was expropriated and turned into a park.

Although “less” rather than “fewer” is an all too common error, correspondent Ron Johnson misreads William Watson’s phrase “The real problem with our democracy is less journalists than legislators, of whom we have 7,470.” Mr. Watson is saying, with impeccable language, that journalists are less of a problem than legislators. Changing “less” to “fewer” would alter the meaning so as to (awkwardly) suggest our democracy need as many journalists as legislators. While Mr. Watson may favour journalists over legislators, this is not the opinion he is expressing.

This article indicates that the fur industry is growing, when in fact there are fewer trappers today than ever before.

Trapping is a pastime of a fading generation. It is not an activity that today’s youth support. In fact, the complete opposite is happening, as young Canadians learn the truth behind these exploitative industries.

The “growth” of the fur trade has only been possible through fur farming: hundreds upon hundreds of cages stacked and piled in sheds, full of animals whose lives will end as soon as their first winter coat emerges.

It should also be noted that the vast majority of sales from the industry are being sent overseas. Canadians have moved away from fur products, as it is not something that we do not support. The survival of this dying industry is dependent on the selling out of Canadian wildlife to foreign interests.

As a proud Edmontonian, I chuckled at Chris Selley’s projection of our descent into savagery if faced with a Calgary-sized flood. The only context needed to understand his satire is that Alberta’s great cities share an equally great rivalry. Yet rivalry aside, I’m happy to congratulate Calgarians on their fortitude amidst an unprecedented challenge — not to mention their choice of a mayor with a sense of humour.

For the crime of wrongly using apostrophes, letter-writer Fraser Patrick would sentence apostrophe abusers to hell, or at least three days in the Market Square “stalks.” I wonder what his sentence would be for homophone abusers. I come from a small town in Northern Ireland, Dromore, which actually has a market square featuring the only surviving example of cast-iron “stocks” in the British Isles.

Letter-writer Marilyn Sinclair will be visiting death camps in Europe for her summer vacation. One cannot but support her in this earnest endeavour, just as one can never stand before any of the holocaust memorials, in whatever form, without enormous pity for the victims and the questions: How was it possible for humans to do this to others? And is it is possible for such things to occur again?

These questions lead me to the one criticism which it might be possible to raise in this context. The word “holocaust” itself is owned by the Jews. It is invariably mentioned that the emphasis on the Jewish Holocaust also serves to remind us of comparable events, and to warn coming generations against them. Yet why are the other mass killings — for which we must not use the word Holocaust — ever mentioned? Rwanda, Cambodia, the unnumbered missing from Pinochet’s regime —one could go on and on.

John Donne said: “Every man’s death diminishes me.” Where, then, are these other memorials, and what are we doing about them? Would we not learn from them as well?

This kind of reporting is an indispensable part of the debate on funding infrastructure that Toronto needs. Development charges in Toronto are a third (or less) of those imposed by neighbouring cities. We should triple them. The resulting $300-million or so generated yearly should go into a trust fund for capital expenditure.

Section 37 of the Planning Act provides councillors with a pig trough to snuffle through, looking for titbits to use to inflate their re-election prospects. It should be replaced with a similar charge, but the money thus found should again go straight into a Capital Expenditure Trust Fund.

The two sources of cash won’t satisfy the need, but they will be a significant contribution. We’ll still need parking fees, gasoline taxes and highway tolls, probably higher property taxes also to create the size of trust fund required.

The next municipal elections are very important. We need to elect councillors and a mayor who will commit to permanent and incorruptible funding for infrastructure. They must also be prepared to dedicate money to civil engineering rather than to social engineering and self-aggrandizement.

As residents of St. Lambert, Que., my family members spend thousands of dollars a year at the IGA on Laurier Boulevard. So we were very disturbed to hear about the English-language restrictions imposed by the management.

I have had to act, on occasion, as a translator for English customers at the checkout, either because the cashier was unable or unwilling to speak in English. After reading this story, I called the store and spoke to the manager on duty. He claimed the whole situation had been blown out of proportion by an ex-employee. I also sent an email to store owner Louise Ménard, informing her that we would be taking our business elsewhere.

It is enough that anglophone rights have been trampled on by Bill 101 and the Office québécois de la langue française; any business that takes it upon itself to go even farther to denigrate the rights of the English deserves to be boycotted. My family will not be spending our hard-earned English dollars as this store. These types of language restrictions are not only unacceptable but absurd.

Andrew Coyne’s 13-paragraph rant against the Senate gutting Bill C-377 could have been summarized in one word: “Unelected.”

Like many Canadians, I agree that the Senate should be abolished or elected. His points about patronage were well received. However, what he missed, and what Senator Hugh Segal beautifully (and concisely) pointed out on a later page was that the reason the pet turned on the master was that the bill was badly drafted and unbalanced. The reason why the judiciary and the upper house are independent is so they can give a fresh look at items passed by the House of Commons

In the Harper-dominated House, the Senate is the only independent body (prior to constitutional challenges) designed with the power to provide a check to this mean-spirited, vindictive and harmful law.

In this instance, Mr. Coyne’s words border on cranky, because of his frustration with the way our political system is designed, but Senator Segal’s argument seems much more reasonable at dealing with things as they currently are.

Geoff Trimpol, Vancouver.

Let it be said and remembered that on June 30th 2013 the Egyptian people, together with its army and its police forces, defied its president, soon to be former president, and his Muslim Brotherhood government. While the world, including the United States, was turning a blind eye to the gradual but systematic islamization of the country, a group of brave young people initiated a circulated a simple petition to demand that Morsi step down; 22 million signed within two months, and the Tamarud (rebel) move was created.

On Sunday, the people united under Tamarud and descended on the streets throughout Egypt to chant its second revolution and to shout a very loud mesage to Mr. Morsi and to the Muslim Brotherhood group: “Get out.”

Nadia Bissada, Baie d’Urfe, Que.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/todays-letters-legislated-multiculturalism-has-not-hurt-canada/feed/0stdCanada Day,Spirit of Albertans during floods is what makes country great, Harper says at Canada Day festivitieshttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/spirit-of-albertans-during-floods-is-what-makes-country-great-harper-says-at-canada-day-festivities
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OTTAWA — The annual Canada Day party on Parliament Hill is celebrating Canadians at home and abroad.

But many people’s thoughts are with those in southern Alberta, still cleaning up from last month’s floods.

They’ve set an example for the rest of the country, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said.

“When floods forced so many from their homes, communities dug deep, neighbours helped neighbours and people sheltered complete strangers,” he said.

“That’s the spirit that makes Canada the best country in the world. The best, bar none.”

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Harper gave his annual address at the foot of the Peace Tower, which he says has come to symbolize Canada’s values.

“Canada is not just any country, but a people determined to do right — a fact that makes me proud as we approach the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of our country,” he said.

“Compassionate neighbours, courageous warriors, and confident partners, a bastion of freedom in an un-free world, a standard-bearer of goodwill, in a time when too many choose to hate, a land of hope in a sea of uncertainty.”

The Parliament Hill noon show featured a performances by Carly Rae Jepsen, live coverage of celebrations in New York and London and an appearance by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham HughesMembers of the Shriners entertain the crowd as they participate in the annual Canada Day parade in Montreal, Monday, July 1, 2013.

Hadfield’s photographs of Canada taken from his perch aboard the international space station earlier this year earned him fans around the world.

He’s performing a song written for his time in space at both the noon and evening shows.

Outside of the nation’s capital, over 30 citizenship ceremonies are planned across the country as are events honouring the Canadian military.

In Calgary, still cleaning up from last month’s flood, the holiday will also mark the re-opening of that city’s downtown core.

The support that Canadians have offered to flood ravaged Alberta prompted Premier Alison Redford to publicly thank them in a video.

“Thank you so much from the bottom of our hearts,” Redford said in the video. “Whether it’s Red Cross volunteers from Newfoundland, social workers from Guelph (Ont.), dog trainers from Kelowna (B.C.) who provided food for search and rescue dogs, the important time and money Canadians poured into the Red Cross to help us rebuild.”

“On this Canada Day we are so grateful to be part of a Canadian community,” she added.

While celebrations there are expected to be robust, officials are warning residents away from river banks as viewing locations for the nightly fire-works show as water levels are still high.

As rain fell on the Halifax celebrations, Alberta was also on people’s minds there.

Don Parker had travelled from Sexsmith, Alta., to celebrate Canada Day in the Nova Scotia capital.

“Whether it’s raining or sunshine or flooding in Alberta, you know, Canada is where I want to live,” said Parker.

“It means having the freedom to travel all over Canada and meet all these great people and see all this wonderful country, in the rain of course,” he said, laughing.

In his message to Canada on its 146th birthday, the governor general says the country must never take for granted what it’s accomplished.

But David Johnston says Canadians can not afford to become complacent and everyone should continue to strive to make the country smarter and more caring.

“Today is Canada’s day, and in four short years we will gather to celebrate the 150th anniversary of this country,” Johnston says.

“With that milestone in mind, let us each strive to discover what we have to give to this country. The essence of democracy is the understanding that we all have something to give, and a responsibility to do so.”

Expat Canadians and those who simply profess a love for Canada also sending their best wishes.

Country star Carrie Underwood, who is married to former Ottawa Senators hockey player and Peterborough, Ont., native Mike Fisher, posted a message to her fans on Twitter Sunday.

“Happy Canada Day weekend, all you crazy Canadians!!!,” she wrote.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham HughesMembers of the Indian community participate in the annual Canada Day parade in Montreal, Monday, July 1, 2013.

The Canadian consulates in New York and Los Angeles also pulled together videos for the celebrations there featuring celebrities like Paul Anka, Mike Myers, Paul Shaffer and Bryan Adams sending Canada Day greetings.

Among the best know celebrations abroad on Canada Day is the party at the U.S. embassy in Washington, D.C., but there are concerns festivities might not be up to their usual standards this year.

The 30 Canadian foreign service workers at the embassy, most of them in high-ranking positions, are among the 1,350 members of the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers who have been in a legal strike position against the federal government since April.

The striking diplomats have refused to work any after-hours events since the work-to-rule action began, causing logistical and organizational headaches for the embassy.

They won’t be at the Canada Day pancake breakfast on Monday, leaving what’s known as “locally engaged” staff to handle the affair.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jordan VerlageKevan Yeats swims after his cat Momo to safety in High River, Alta. on June 20, 2013. Yeats who gained international fame after leaping from a submerged pickup truck into Alberta floodwaters says he was surprised at how eagerly the feline took to the rushing water.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/spirit-of-albertans-during-floods-is-what-makes-country-great-harper-says-at-canada-day-festivities/feed/1stdMembers of the crowd wave flags as they watch the annual Canada Day parade in Montreal, Monday, July 1, 2013.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham HughesTHE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham HughesTHE CANADIAN PRESS/Jordan VerlageSeeing our country through the eyes of those born elsewherehttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/their-canada-seeing-our-country-through-the-eyes-of-those-born-elsewhere
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What better way to celebrate Canada Day than to dine al fresco? This buffet of local, seasonal ingredients makes for picnic-perfect salads and sandwiches:

NICE CANADIAN SALAD
This Canadian riff on salad Niçoise reflects our ingredients and personality. Serve as is or add the extras — grilled steak, smoked salmon platter and/or a cheese board. Take this salad to go, either in a jar or in vegetarian salad sandwiches. Feel free to add goat cheese, feta or ricotta, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers or salad ingredients you like best to any of these recipes. (Most of the fresh ingredients were from Cookstown Greens and Marvellous Edibles or purchased at farmers’ markets in Toronto.)

- 6 eggs- 1 lb red or yellow beets or a combination- 2 lbs baby Yukon Gold potatoes, larger ones halved- 4 tbsp cold pressed canola oil (Pristine), divided- 1 tsp kosher salt, divided- 2 lbs heirloom carrots- 1/2 lb green beans- 1 lb asparagus- 6 cups mixed greensDressing:- 3 tbsp Niagara Empire apple cider vinegar- 1 tsp Kozlik’s Dijon-style mustard- 1 clove garlic, minced- 1/2 tsp kosher salt or more to taste (Windsor Salt)- 1 tbsp maple syrup (Forbes Wild Foods #3)- 1/2 cup cold pressed canola oil (Pristine)- 1 tbsp chopped fresh tarragon1. Bring a 3 qt saucepan of water to a boil. Add 1 tbsp kosher salt. Gently lower eggs into the water, bring to a boil again, cover and remove pot from heat. Let stand 12 minutes. Drain eggs. Cover with cold water. Gently crack eggs against the sides of the pot and let cool in cold water. Remove shells. (If the eggs are really fresh it will be harder to remove shells.) Cut in halves or quarters.2. Wrap beets in aluminum foil and bake in a preheated 400F oven for 1 to 1 1/2 hours until tender when pierced with a knife. Cool. Rub off skins. Break into chunks.3. Meanwhile, toss potatoes in 2 tbsp oil and 1/2 tsp salt. Spread, cut sides down, on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and roast in a preheated 400F oven until browned and tender about 25 to 35 minutes. Cut carrots in half lengthwise. Toss with another 2 tbsp oil and 1/2 tsp salt, spread on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, cut sides down, 20 to 30 minutes until lightly browned.4. Bring a deep skillet of water to the boil. Add green beans and cook about 2 minutes until bright green and tender. Lift out of water and transfer to a bowl of ice water. When cold, lift from ice water and pat dry. Add asparagus to boiling water and cook 2 to 3 minutes until bright green and just tender. Transfer to ice water and then drain and pat dry.5. For dressing whisk vinegar with mustard, garlic, salt and maple syrup. Whisk in oil.6. To serve, line a large platter with lettuce. Scatter all salad ingredients over top. Sprinkle with tarragon and drizzle with as much dressing as you like. Any remaining dressing will keep 5 days in the refrigerator.

Tyler Anderson/National Post

SUMMER CAKES
These individual crumble cakes are sweet in 250mL/1 cup Mason jars* — just screw on the tops for easy transporting. At picnics serve plain or topped with maple syrup or ricotta flavoured with a little syrup or honey. At home, serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. Use different fruits as they come into season. The topping below makes more than you will need for this recipe but it’s handy to have in the freezer to top cooked fruit, ice cream, pies, muffins and cakes. (To bake Canadian, I used Hewitt buttermilk, Organic Meadow butter and yogurt and Forbes Wild Foods maple products.)Crumb topping:- 1 cup all-purpose flour or whole wheat- 1/2 cup sugar- 1/2 cup brown sugar or maple sugar- 1/2 cup cold butter, cut into small cubesCake:- 1/2 cup butter- 3/4 cup sugar- 2 eggs- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose or whole wheat flour- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder- 1/2 tsp baking soda- 1/4 tsp kosher salt- 3/4 cup buttermilk, sour cream or yogurt- 6 cups fruit (halved strawberries, halved, pitted cherries, diced rhubarb, thinly sliced peaches, blueberries, raspberries, cranberries)- 3/4 cup brown sugar or maple sugar- 1/4 tsp cinnamon, optional1. For crumb topping combine flour with sugars and blend well. Cut in butter until it is in tiny bits. This can be done by hand or in a food processor. Spread mixture on a baking sheet and bake 15 to 20 minutes in a preheated 350F oven or until lightly browned, stirring once or twice. Cool. This can be made ahead and kept in the refrigerator a few days or for months in the freezer.2. Cream butter and sugar together until light. Beat in eggs one at a time and then vanilla. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt about 30 seconds. Stir flour mixture into butter mixture alternately with buttermilk, just until combined. Place 1/4 cup mixture into the bottom of 12 – 250mL/1 cup Mason jars that have been buttered or sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. (Or use ovenproof ramekins or muffin pans.) Toss fruit with brown sugar and cinnamon and gently press 1/2 cup fruit into the top of each cake. Place jars on a baking sheet lined with a wet tea towel (folded to fit into the baking sheet) and fill to lip with hot water. (No need to do this with ramekins/muffin pans.) Bake 30 to 35 minutes in a preheated 350F oven or until cake springs back when lightly touched or an instant-read meat thermometer registers 195F. Cool on wire racks. Sprinkle with 1 to 2 tablespoons baked crumb mixture. makes 12 individual cakes* Warning: After baking three batches of these cakes in the Mason jars (in a water bath as directed above) without a problem, I learned that although chefs do this regularly, technically, these jars should not go into the oven. You can bake the cake in a 9-inch square pan, cut it into squares and fit them into the jars after cake cools if you want the look but are reluctant to bake in the jars.

Hector Guerrero/AFP/Getty ImagesView through a window of one of the three trucks found with more than 20 bodies, at a street of Guadalajara, Jalisco State, Mexico on November 24, 2011. Officials have found at least 20 bodies in three vehicles abandoned in Mexico's second most populous city Guadalajara, the state prosecutor's office said Thursday.

The traditional striped blankets featured as picnic blankets and tablecloths throughout (in bright stripes and neutral grey) come in cotton or wool and woven in Drummond, New Brunswick by second-generation weavers Gérald and Lyne Lévesque, baby to king size, $85-$400 seasonally at the Fredericton Farmers’ Market (506-473-6485, magely@nb.sympatico.ca) and One of a Kind Shows in winter.

Have you ever been told you look like someone famous? OK, how about someone moderately well known, but only in Canada? Your 15 minutes may have just arrived. CMJ Productions in Montreal has recently opened a casting agency that hires actors, experts, and look-alikes for film, TV and commercial projects.

And don’t worry ­— no acting experience necessary. Typically look-alikes are hired for the docudramas that CMJ produces. The demand has been so high that the company decided to start casting in-house. But casting look-alikes isn’t easy: Sometimes the resemblance is uncanny, but more often it depends on the angle and the context. And, of course, the more famous the person, the more familiar the public is with the details of their appearance. With Canada’s 146th birthday on Monday, we thought we would put CMJ to the test. We asked them to find us doppelgängers of some famous Canadians, living and dead.

“It’s challenging when everyone knows exactly what the person looks like,” says Jessica Greenberg of CMJ. “But it’s a fun challenge.” Here are their best shots.

Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press; Christinne Muschi for National PostGaetan Morel does his best impression
of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
But what are your thoughts on
Senate reform, Gaetan?

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Brady-Handy Photograph Collection; Christinne Muschi for National PostJean-Francois Joly’s Sir John A. Macdonald is much younger and suaver than the version of Canada’s first PM on the $10 bill.

Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images files; Christinne Muschi for National Post Eric Blouin as actor and comedian Eugene Levy, best known as part of the SCTV ensemble.
It’s all about the eyebrows.

As we are celebrating Canada’s 146th birthday, replete with a veritable love-in of flag-waving self-congratulatory fervour, one cannot escape the uncomfortable notion that it is a slippery slope from patriotism to jingoism. Canada’s official policy of legislated multiculturalism has, in reality, become a sad manifestation of the intense insecurity that has developed with regard to our historical national identity. Thus, many things have been named and renamed “Canada,” be it Canada Day or Canada Place, lest we might forget who we are or where we are.

Other countries do not have “America Day” or “France Day” or “Germany Day” — they are secure about who and what they are. National days celebrate historical achievement. The French people gave birth to their nation on July 14,1789, and celebrate it as Bastille Day. Americans gave birth to their nation on July 4, 1776, and celebrate it as Independence Day.

Canada began its devolutionary journey to self-government on July 1, 1867, as the federal Dominion of Canada with the confederation of the three colonies of British North America into the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia — so let’s mark Canada’s birthday as Confederation Day.

146 years later, Confederation — the “coming together” of all of Canada —continues to be a challenge requiring renewed effort and commitment from all of us.

The writer of this editorial has a lot of nerve to talk of “politicized” policing in relation to the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) response to the Douglas Creek Estates dispute in Caledonia Ont.

Since April 2006, the OPP has laid 191 criminal charges against 96 persons relating to the Douglas Creek Estates dispute. Police investigations have resulted in charges ranging from property related offences up to and including attempted murder. The OPP has exercised the proper use of police discretion in the interests of public and officer safety. Rather than inflame a volatile situation, police will sometimes gather evidence and wait for a safer time to make an arrest. The proper use of police discretion should not be confused with lack of enforcement.

At no time during my tenure as either Deputy Commissioner or Commissioner has any Premier or member of provincial government attempted to direct police operations of the OPP.

The OPP recognizes the Charter rights of everyone to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. The overall OPP objective is to work with all parties to ensure public and officer safety and to maintain orderly conduct. The OPP has no role to play in resolution of the underlying issues.

Since February of 2006 to the present, the OPP has responded to, or assisted in the response to, at least 500 aboriginal critical incidents.

Given the circumstances, it is remarkable that there were no deaths, few injuries and public safety was maintained. The results speak for themselves.

Bill C-377 requires unions to disclose many things publicly but I’ll focus on two items. First one: Name me a charity, non-profit, corporation or government that is required to publicly disclose every $5,000 purchase? None are required to do this, but should the Senate pass bill C-377, then every union will be required to disclose every detail.

Name me a charity, non- profit, corporation or government that is required to publicly disclose the name and compensation level of everyone one of their employees, should they earn more than $100,000? The answer is again none, except a few in government.

So, if charities, non-profits, corporations and governments (with a few exceptions) are not required to provide this level of disclosure, why unions? Charities, non-profits and governments benefit from not paying taxes but they don’t have these regulatory requirements. Why target unions? It’s as if the Conservatives are targeting their political enemies on a flimsy pretext.

I was very touched by Tasha Kheiriddin’s account of the life of her daughter, Zara. I wonder whatever became of similar children 50 years ago; probably institutionalized somewhere? I know that there is another me inside my head who only has free rein when I dream but is switched off as soon as I awaken from the nightmare. That little switch may be the only difference between Zara and the rest of us. Let us pray that someone finds it.

As the Houses of Parliament adjourn for the summer, Canadians can reflect on the fact that this country is in better condition than all but a few others. And that small group certainly does not include the United States.

The state of American policy is now beginning to transcend even the indulgence of the most tenacious believers in Barack Obama’s statesmanlike aptitudes. The “Reset” button with Russia has led to a torrent of insolences from the Kremlin, including increased intimacy with Iran in promoting the survival of the Assad regime in Syria. The corrupt Karzai regime in Afghanistan, for which thousands of Americans and their allies (including 158 Canadian Forces personnel) have died and a trillion dollars have been spent, has now embraced Tehran as a senior ally. And Washington itself has convened peace talks that include Mullah Omar’s Taliban, the host to Osama bin-Laden and his lieutenants when al-Qaeda was planning 9/11.

In the words of distinguished Wall Street Journal commentator Bret Stephens, it is “The Age of American Impotence: no peace, no peace process, no ally, no leverage and no moral standing.” President Obama still speaks of arms control while approaching what is now a high probability of an Iranian-led nuclear arms build-up in the Middle East. His strategy is bluster and threat without any follow-up, unless shamed into action (as in Libya by the French and the British).

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In Berlin last week, Obama ascribed terrorism to “instability and intolerance,” as if we had gone back to the New Frontier theory of JFK’s Best and Brightest, that Indochinese Communism could be fought by the Peace Corps, and by building schools and roads. American liberals, like the French Bourbons returning in the baggage train of the Duke of Wellington’s army in 1815, “have forgotten nothing, and learned nothing.” There is now little likelihood that America will have anything to show for the mighty effort and sacrifices in Iraq and Afghanistan, except the evaporation of its influence in the capitals of the world.

Sean Gallup/Getty ImagesU.S. President Barack Obama prepares to speak at the Brandenburg Gate on June 19, 2013 in Berlin.

Meanwhile, in Europe, including the United Kingdom, only Germany and its Scandinavian, Baltic, Germanic, Czech, Dutch and Polish entourage, are not gasping from the after-effects of decades of over-paying Danegeld to the working and agrarian classes. Japan has finally, after 20 years of recession and chronic ageing, embraced pell-mell inflation. (It won’t work, especially in a nation with a 20% savings rate.) The Russia of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky, and even of Solzhenitsyn, is just a gangster-state. China has falling growth, 600-million rural people living largely as they did thousands of years ago, no social safety net, and a completely corrupt system of collective dictatorship with no system of laws or public institutions that command any credence at all. It’s a remarkable developing-country story, but not the stuff of any early claim to world leadership.

This is why Canada has a chance it has never had before to be an influence in the world, not by the traditional methods of arms build-ups, economic superiority, or by being the spear of a great and proselytizing idea. The opportunity lies in Canada’s potential to be a respected guide to reform of domestic and international institutions and practices that are not now functioning well.

The United States led the world to the triumph of democracy and the free market, and the world must always be grateful for that, but is not now one of the more exemplary practitioners of either. Canada is a rich and liberal society that has spread the wealth of the country around better than most, but also has gradually become a relatively low-tax country (even if household debt is too high, and economic growth is too slow). We will not attract the world’s attention by sanguinary drama, as the French and Russian Revolutions, the U.S. and Chinese Civil Wars, or the Battle of Britain, did. But Canada can assume a position of leadership by intelligent acts of policy innovation and proposal of reform of international organizations that will gain adherence and emulators.

Canada should lead the world in imposing some yardstick of currency value based on a combination of the prices of gold, oil, and a range of essential consumer goods

I have trod this path before in this space, and so will recapitulate just a few things that we Canadians should do and which would responsibly serve the world.

The currencies of the world are essentially worthless; they are valued only opposite each other, and all are being inflated simultaneously, even in deflationary times as followed the 2008 collapse of the housing bubble. Sixty years ago, a cup of coffee cost five cents and a hair-cut 25 cents. A return to the gold standard would put too much power in the hands of mining engineers and precious metals speculators, but Canada should lead the world in imposing some yardstick of currency value based on a combination of the prices of gold, oil, and a range of essential consumer goods. Other countries would follow, and the inflationary charge would be slowed and turned. We could put a rod on the backs of all the world’s serious treasuries and central banks to stop ruining the savers and fixed income-earners.

In the temporary vacuum created by the U.S. foreign policy establishment’s sustained malaise, Canada should take the lead in proposing that NATO be transformed into a world-wide alliance of reasonably democratic countries pledged to all-for-one collective defense and security, and in demanding withdrawal of the vote at the United Nations General Assembly from all countries that flagrantly disregard the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man, until they reach a minimal level of conformity to it. When this is refused (as it will be, by China and Russia, among others), it should lead all the countries that meet that standard in the cessation of any funding to the UN, and the establishment of a parallel world organization, until the UN returns to its founding purposes.

REUTERS/KRT via REUTERS TVNew North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un (2nd L) shakes hands with generals after paying his respects to his father and former leader Kim Jong-il, lying in state at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang in this still picture taken from video footage aired by KRT (Korean Central TV of the North) December 20, 2011.

Finally, we should re-establish our claim to being a truly liberal state by abolishing incarceration for all but violent offenders and chronic recidivists. It is a practice that continues only because it has always been done and is an easy target for politicians playing on public paranoia and the general respect for the less productive versions of vengeance. I do not believe it is necessary for me to establish my credentials as a commentator on the effects of prison; it was my good fortune to be sent to two of the highest quality prisons in the United States, where I had no difficulties with anyone, in the regime or among my fellow-residents. But I can attest that they are very corrupt, hideously expensive to the taxpayer, do almost nothing to equip people to reenter society, to deter crime, or even to impart increased hireability to the unskilled labour among the prison personnel. Contributed, supervised, community work would accomplish much more and much more cheaply. And Canada demeans itself and compounds ancient injustices with a policy that leads to the incarceration of an inordinate number of native people.

It is well-known that I generally support the present federal government, but I am concerned, and I know that many others are also, that it too much resembles a competent government of caretakers rather than an administration aggressively seeking to reform what is decayed and lever on Canada’s strengths to be a more effective exemplary influence in the world. There is much cause for pleasure and pride, but none for complacency, this July 1.

National Post

cbletters@gmail.com

Note: The Canadian Association of Journalists attempted to reply to my column of last week but has still not told me if its “moderator” has approved circulation of my denial of the libelous comment it sent round to its membership that prompted the column after the CAJ declined to accept my denial. Is it in the defamation business or not?

Long before he became the prime minister of Canada in 1957, John Diefenbaker was hyper-sensitive about his German roots and name — despite the fact his father and paternal grandfather were born in Canada, and his mother was of Scottish heritage.

This was why he spent so much of his career pushing for “unhyphenated Canadian-ism,” a unifying Canadian national identity with a distinctly British character. Thus, in 1964 and 1965, as leader of the opposition, he ardently opposed the replacement of the Union Jack and Red Ensign with the Canadian Maple Leaf flag (which he derisively compared to “a flag Peruvians would salute”). Once in power, he decided to reclaim Dominion Day as a national holiday supported by the federal government.

Diefenbaker, who died in 1979, surely would have been disappointed, but likely not surprised, when Dominion Day became Canada Day through what Ottawa Citizen columnist Robert Sibley rightly called “a swift bit of legislative sleight of hand.” Late on a lazy Friday on July 9, 1982, with the House of Commons nearly empty, the handful of Liberals present managed to pass a private member’s bill that had languished for two years after receiving first reading. In a matter of moments, the bill, which changed the name of Dominion Day to Canada Day, got third reading.

At the time, there were grumblings about the underhandedness of the process. Yet, today with Canada’s British connection a subject mainly reserved for Canadian history lectures and seminars, no one much cares. On Monday, Canada Day will be celebrated on Parliament Hill and across the country. And we owe the day, in all its various forms, to Dief.

He ardently opposed the Canadian maple leaf flag, which he derisively compared to ‘a flag Peruvians would salute’

Confederation had been marked on July 1, 1867 in Toronto with the ringing of the bells at St. James Cathedral. It was a day of “bonfires, fireworks and illuminations, excursions, military displays and musical and other entertainments,” as one contemporary writer recalled it.

Dominion Day, however, did not officially become a national holiday until 1879. Even then, and for the next five decades, as University of Guelph historian Matthew Hayday has chronicled in a 2010 article in the Canadian Historical Review, the holiday usually was left in the hands of local communities who organized picnics (as well as the governor general, who hosted a party).

One hundred years ago, on July 1, 1913, for example, the holiday received only passing mention in the Toronto Globe, other than a sappy poem by writer and political cartoonist J.W. Bengough. Still, there was at least one event that resonates to the present day: Simpson’s department store on Yonge Street, though closed for the holiday, advertised a “Maple Leaf Sale” (men’s two-piece tweed suits were a bargain for $6.50).

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Soon after the 1957 election, Diefenbaker halted the previous Liberal administrations’ gradual elimination of the term “Dominion” from federal institutions, and tasked secretary of state Ellen Fairclough, the first female federal cabinet minister, with devising an appropriate Dominion Day celebration for 1958.

She accessed $14,000, 70% of which went to pay for fireworks, and set in motion an exciting if somewhat formal round of activities in Ottawa. Until then, it was a tradition that Parliament was in session on July 1. Fairclough convinced the prime minister and her cabinet colleagues to let MPs attend the festivities.

Library and Archives CanadaCrowds on Parliament Hill and Wellington Street for Dominion Day celebrations, in honour of the "60 Year Jubilee" of Canadian Confederation in 1927.

On July 1, 1958, in another first, Governor General Vincent Massey’s address on Parliament Hill, which emphasized Canada’s English-French roots, was broadcast on CBC television. That was followed by a concert that featured military bands and a $10,000 fireworks display.

Thereafter, Dominion Day in Ottawa continued to expand. In 1958, after Fairclough became minister of citizenship and Immigration, she invited folk and ethnic groups to perform; and the day became more fun, casual and family oriented.

When Lester Pearson and the Liberals ousted Diefenbaker and the Tories in 1963, his government continued the tradition. In 1965, as Hayday notes, Alex Trebek and Henri Bergeron were the bilingual hosts who welcomed performers from far and wide.

Depictions of Aboriginal people shifted from their assimilation to Euro-Canadian values to ones in which First Nations maintained Indigenous languages and traditions

One of the groups on stage was the Cariboo Indian Girls Pipe Band, “a dozen tartan-clad teenaged girls from the Shushwap First nation who performed traditional bagpipe music.” The girls’ presence in Ottawa had been supported by Father H. O’Connor, the principal of the St. Joseph’s Mission residential school they attended. “We would like the people of Canada to see the better side of our Indian people and we feel sure that there is no better means of educating our Canadian people to see this better side than to have such a fine group of Ambassadors representing the Indian people,” he wrote to officials at the secretary of state department in March, 1965.

In time, as Hayday shows, strictly British and French images of the country gave way to multicultural themes. He adds: “Depictions of Aboriginal people shifted from their assimilation to Euro-Canadian values to ones in which First Nations maintained Indigenous languages and traditions or created a new fusion of Aboriginal and Euro-Canadian practices.”

The Harper government’s recent decision to transfer budgetary control of Canada Day (and other national celebrations such as Winterlude) from the National Capital Commission to the federal heritage department as preparation for 150th anniversary of Confederation in 2017 means that the manipulation of July 1 for cultural as well as partisan purposes will continue. The Chief, who liked to think he was above such blatant politics, would probably not have been impressed.